Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart Discusses Fall Practice

Prior to Fan Day, Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart addressed the media and discussed the Bulldogs’ preparation through the first week of practice.

Following are the opening comments from the second-year head coach:

“As you know, it is Fan Day. We are excited to have the opportunity to get out in front of our fans and let them watch us practice and see a typical practice of what our kids go through. The good part is we get to go to the stadium to do it, so our players are excited about a new venue and a chance to get out in front of the fans and compete. It always energizes them when people are watching, so we are excited to have the fan base out and we encourage as many people as possible to come and visit with our players afterwards. It’s always good to get back with these fans. They are always good to us, so we are excited about that.

We are entering Day 6. We have been in pads for three days now — two of them were pads and shorts and then one was full pads yesterday and we will be full pads today, so it is our fourth day in pads. Our team is progressing well. Any time you get a chance to compete and go against each other the cream starts rising to the top and you start finding out more about guys. We certainly have alot of guys who are young and talented, but they are a little bit confused, too. We have to do a great job as coaches of bringing those guys along and keep developing them and teaching them, because the initial instinct of a kid this young is to get disheartened, or upset or frustrated at times. We can’t let that happen with these young kids. We have to continue to let them grow and let them know that it is a 27-practice process that they have to go through and they are not going to get it overnight. I think some of them are starting to do that. We have good leadership on this team. I am challenging them to lead every day. I do not think we had the kind of practice we needed to have yesterday, although it did not go bad. Up until yesterday we had really good practices. We will come back around today with you guys there and the fan base there.”

Georgia continues practice this week as the team prepares to host Appalachian State on September 2.